Gear: Mizuno ST-X hybrid
Price: $225 each with Aldila Ascent Red graphite shafts and Lamkin ST Hybrid 360 grip
Specs: Stainless steel chassis with MAS1C maraging stainless steel face. Available as a 4-hybrid (20 degrees), 5-hybrid (23 degrees), and 6-hybrid (26 degrees).
Available: February 3
If you believe everything you see on social media, every golfer who uses Mizuno’s irons plays muscleback blades, such as the new Mizuno Pro 221, and hits 2-irons and 3-irons like Ben Hogan. That’s not reality. Most golfers need irons that offer game-improvement features such as forgiveness, stability, and distance-enhancement. Most also have no business carrying a 3-iron or even a 4-iron, so Mizuno offers iron-replacing hybrids. For 2022 the Japanese company is offering the new ST-X models.
At address, these are classic Mizunos. The look is clean with a glossy black crown and a gold Mizuno chevron behind the topline to help golfers align the ideal hitting area behind the ball.
However, the MAS1C stainless steel face is just 1.8 millimeters thick, making it the thinnest hybrid face Mizuno has ever produced. It allows the hitting area to flex more efficiently at impact to create more ball speed and distance.
To expand the sweet spot and improve performance on shots hit low in the hitting area, Mizuno designed a Wave Sole on the bottom of the club, directly behind the leading edge. The series of ribs and valleys allows the bottom of the face to at impact, normalizing ball speed and making thin shots perform more like well-hit shots.
The ST-X hybrids are larger than Mizuno’s other hybrids, which allowed designers to lower the center of gravity and pull it farther back. That encourages a higher launch and a steeper angle of descent for more stopping power on the greens.
With a deeper center of gravity and a hosel axis that is closer to the center of gravity, the ST-X hybrids have a slight draw bias. Many elite players shy away from draw-biased hybrids, but for those players who want a neutral or fade-biased hybrid, Mizuno’s CLK hybrid remains in the company’s lineup. The ST-X fills a void for Mizuno and gives the company a hybrid that is more distance-oriented and more ideally suited for the game-improvement market.
The lofts of the ST-X hybrids are about 1 degree stronger than other Mizuno hybrids because the ST-X aims to appeal to the game-improvement market. Players who want to replace a game-improvement 5-iron with a hybrid, for example, should be able to go with the same numbered ST-X hybrid in many instances.